The Dilettante abides
The Dilettante abides
This past July, Howard Chua-Eoan wrote on Bloomberg: In 1931, the Politburo ordered the demolition of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior in Moscow; it was built by Czar Alexander I to commemorate Napoleon’s retreat from the city and the…
Clara Ferreira Marques wrote yesterday in Bloomberg Elements: Russia’s plan to cut oil production by 500,000 barrels a day next month — roughly 5% of its January output and 0.5% of global supply — was a show of strength. Sorry but no. It was another…
Following up on the Karamazovs, an obvious remark. It is said that Dostoevsky’s portrayal of women was lacking next to his male characters. It is not generally true – The Idiot is a counterexample – but The Brothers Karamazov is…
On Hope by Tara Isabella Burton in the Hedgehog Review: In order to accept our lives as a comedy, we must accept that none of us are the heroes we imagine ourselves to be. This is the truth understood by…
Alexander Van der Bellen has been re-elected President of Austria. As I wrote in 2016, when he won his first term, Van der Bellen’s ancestors had moved from the Netherlands to Russia in the 18th century. They lived in Pskov…
Commenting on Putin’s “annexation speech” on September 30, Shaun Walker wrote in the Guardian: Today, he offered an angrier but less coherent denunciation of the west, more angry taxi driver than head of state. If you’ve ever heard a post-Soviet…
Mikhail Shishkin, in The Atlantic: The world is surprised at the quiescence of the Russian people, the lack of opposition to the war. But this has been their survival strategy for generations—as the last line of Pushkin’s Boris Godunov puts…
In the New Statesman, Katie Stallard reviews Putin: His Life and Times by Philip Short. Referring to Putin’s tenure as deputy mayor of St. Petersburg under Anatoly Sobchak, the reviewer notes: As Sobchak’s deputy, Putin earned a reputation for discipline,…
From Timothy Snyder‘s opinion column in The New York Times (May 19, 2022): A time traveler from the 1930s would have no difficulty identifying the Putin regime as fascist. The rhetoric, the symbolism, and some of the political lexicon would…
John Dolan, the author of Pleasant Hell and the creator of Gary Brecher, the War Nerd, once produced an impassioned diatribe against George Orwell and Christopher Hitchens. It is deeply unfair to Orwell but a great read all the same.…
On February 12, 1942, Joseph Goebbels wrote in his diary: If I were an Englishman I would tremble for the fate of the Empire. Taken out of context, it was a sensible call, although it didn’t take a genius to…
One of Hitler’s recurring tropes was the German empire’s and nation’s “remorseless struggle for existence.” Nazi officials beat that horse to death, and then some: There can be no compromise in Germany’s struggle for its existence, no turning back, no…